NI Water response to NIAUR freeze/thaw incident report
03 March 2011 17:11
Northern Ireland Waters interim Chief Executive Trevor Haslett has said he is fully committed to taking forward all the recommendations proposed by the recently published review by NIAUR into the major freeze/thaw incident over the Christmas and New Year period:“Following on from the major incident which took place in December and January, we in Northern Ireland Water fully accept that many lessons need to be learnt from what was an exceptionally difficult time for many of our customers.
“This report does highlight the fact that much good work was done by our staff on the ground and I want to record my sincere thanks to those people for their efforts in often extremely difficult circumstances. I would also like to add my personal thanks to many other Government Agencies and local Councils who assisted in providing resources. It remains the case however, that on a number of fronts, in particular in relation to communicating with our customers, we fell far short of what they expect and what we as an organisation are determined to provide.
“My focus therefore is very much on learning and embedding those lessons going forward in order to ensure that we provide the best possible service to our customers.
“Many of the steps recommended within this report have already been put in place and we will press forward to implement those remaining as quickly as possible.
“The past year has been a difficult time for this organisation for a variety of reasons and we have been placed under the utmost scrutiny. Earlier today for example we had the publication of the Public Accounts Committee report on Procurement and Governance and also Measuring Performance.
“It will be important that we use these investigations and the recommendations as a foundation on which to build for the future.
“I am convinced that working together with our various stakeholders and our dedicated workforce, we can provide our customers with the level of service that we are all determined to achieve.”